


Escapism

by CarbieDraws



Category: GTARP, Grand Theft Auto V, NoPixel
Genre: Angst, Discussion Of Murder, Disordered thinking, Gen, Implied abuse, Innacurate depictions of mental illness, Tessa's life is just not good, references to trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27621044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarbieDraws/pseuds/CarbieDraws
Summary: "When Tessa opened her eyes, she wasn’t greeted by clocks on the wall or the endless ticking she normally was. Instead she woke up in a home vaguely reminiscent of her childhood one with her adoptive dad. Little stuffed animals stacked up in the corners from countless gifts he tried to give for her love, the room painted a soft pink that he had painstakingly painted over himself before she was adopted just to make her feel more welcome- even if pink wasn’t her favorite color.It was a room that felt like love and warmth.But waking up in this room didn’t mean anything good. Usually it meant Mary was out."---A glimpse into Tessa's inner world.
Kudos: 10





	Escapism

**Author's Note:**

> Context: With DID, some people may create something called an 'inner world', which is where alters kind of live when they're not in control of the body! I wanted to play with this concept in relation to Tessa.  
> The idea of Tessa's inner world being animal crossing-esque was actually inspired by a few months ago, when Brian left Tessa distraught and alone at a house to rescue Baas, who had recently been found after being tortured by Talon. In the down time Nakkida pulled up Animal Crossing and started playing, and that's where I got the idea of Tessa escaping into the Animal Crossing world to feel safe!
> 
> Also for reference, I call P3/The Other, 'Maisy' in this fic, just to make things simpler. It's my headcanon name, because I just think it's plausible for a childlike alter of Tessa's to take on the name of her beloved childhood dog.

When Tessa opened her eyes, she wasn’t greeted by clocks on the wall or the endless ticking she normally was. Instead she woke up in a home vaguely reminiscent of her childhood one with her adoptive dad. Little stuffed animals stacked up in the corners from countless gifts he tried to give for her love, the room painted a soft pink that he had painstakingly painted over himself before she was adopted just to make her feel more welcome- even if pink wasn’t her favorite color.

It was a room that felt like love and warmth.

But waking up in this room didn’t mean anything good. Usually it meant Mary was out.

Tessa shoved off the covers, slowly stretching out as she acclimated to her surroundings. She carefully opened the door, greeted with a warm sunny day outside, and beautiful scenery that radiated happiness.

The inner world was her safe place. Based around Animal Crossing, a game that made her feel loved and accepted as a child. A reprieve from the fear her parents brought about. When she couldn’t play the game because her parents took away anything that made her happy, she began to retreat to this place in her mind to escape. When the screaming and the yelling got too much, this was her happy place.

And then Mary came around, and there was no need for it anymore. When Mary came out, Tessa didn’t need her happy place. Instead she was just forced down, away from consciousness, not even aware of her surroundings.

In a way, she had missed it. She had missed the flowers that she could tend to, the little residents of the town she had created to populate it. She missed the feeling of safety it gave her when she felt like she had nowhere else to go. But Mary ruled, and she saw no reason for frivolous things.

And the The Other- casually nicknamed Maisy- decided to show her face, and suddenly the inner world blossomed back into existence. She needed somewhere to stay, she wasn’t content to be forced down until finally she was called back up. And she was stronger than Tessa, so she could do it.

Finally, Tessa’s inner world was back. Maisy had taken it over, spending most of her time playing like a normal child, completely unaware of the world around her. It was the innocence Tessa wished she could have. Perhaps that was part of the reason she was created, to mimic a childhood Tessa wished she could have, where caring for the island was the only thing she had to worry about.

Tessa stepped over the flowers in front of her house- golden roses, of course- and down the pathway until she came to Maisy’s little house. She was watering some flowers in front of it, humming to herself.

“Hey Maisy,” Tessa said softly.

The little girl startled, turning around with a jump. In a lot of ways she resembled Tessa as a little girl, with some key differences. She had many, many freckles dotted across her skin, although a lot were covered up by her myriad of band aids. Her eyes were also a bright blue, reflecting back innocence. And her hair-

It looked like it was cut using scissors by an over excitable little kid.

“Do you like my hair, Tessa?! I did it myself!” She jumped up and down.

“I see. Did you use safety scissors?”

She nodded. “Uh huh. I made sure to protect my head.” She pointed at her noggin like Tessa would forget where that was. “It’s been a lot of time since you’ve been here.” Maisy pulled out her pocket watch, examining it closely. “Where have you been?! I wanted to play! I haven’t even gotten to be out in so long...”

Tessa squatted down to be face to face with her. “You know me and Mary have that agreement now, right?” Maisy nodded. “Well that means that we’re tending to both be in the drivers seat more. She doesn’t have to take full control and leave me here anymore. And when she does, it’s usually only for a few seconds. That’s all.”

“It’s not because you don’t like me?” Maisy pouted.

“Of course not.” In all actually, Tessa wasn’t quite sure how to feel about Maisy. It was no secret Tessa never wanted children. She was too afraid of becoming just like her parents. Who knew what Mary might do. She couldn’t put anyone else in that situation. But Maisy, she didn’t really have a choice. She was created by the system for a purpose, and she wasn’t going anywhere. She was stuck with them, and Tessa was probably the only good influence she’d get.

Thankfully from everything Tessa had heard, Mary almost never came to the inner world. She saw no use, and she was always looking through Tessa’s eyes. The only moments she caught glimpses of it were when Tessa fought hard enough for control to push her away, or when she needed to talk to Maisy. This was the only place she could be talked to without also letting her out to the front, and that was a bad idea on all ends. No, Maisy would only get control when both Mary and Tessa were out for the count. No matter how badly she wanted it.

“Hows it been outside? Have you seen Matt? Or Amara? How are they?” She held her hands together in what could only be described as pure anticipatory joy.

“They’re… good.” Nothing good ever came out of telling Maisy Amara was dead, or she still didn’t see Matt a lot. It would only cause her a lot of grief, and then she’d forget soon enough, because she lived her life in cycles.

“That’s good! Matt and Amara are doing good here! I bet they missed you too, let’s go say hi!” Maisy grabbed Tessa’s hand, pulling her along the path to a small house with a red fence around it, where a little yellow humanoid dog was sweeping.

“Hi Matt!” Maisy yelled. The dog turned around, red glasses perched on his face. He smiled, chirping back a generic greeting. They exchanged a few words, and ‘Matt’ gave her a gift, which she greedily opened, placing the new safety helmet on her head. “Thank you! You know me so well Matt!”

Maisy grabbed Tessa’s hand again, pulling her over to a bright white house where a snow white cat with a stethoscope around her neck was perched on a chair.

“Hi Amara!” Another repetitive greeting chirped back, a heart tacked onto the end. Maisy leaned in to give her a hug, squishing their cheeks together. It was a child’s view of romance, no icky kissing or complicated emotions.

The villagers were the one of the only parts of the inner world that put Tessa slightly off- besides the knowledge that when she was in here, Mary was out there. The facsimiles of her friends in animal form acting like they were Animal Crossing characters was too creepy for Tessa. It spoke to something deep inside of her that she didn’t like. Would she prefer if her friends were two dimensional caricatures that didn’t make her life difficult, and stuck by her no matter what? Friends that didn’t die, or leave her behind to pursue new and better things? Tessa didn’t know, and she didn’t want to think about it. But it made Maisy happy, and she was the one spending the most time here, so it was her right to have.

“Let me show you the improvements I’ve made! I’m adding a little pond for fishing, and I put up a bunch of things around it to decorate! When it’s summer I’m gonna go diving and catch all the fish out in the ocean and I’m gonna decorate the area with them too!”

Maisy led her around the island, pointing out all the different spots that she had already shown Tessa before, but probably forgot she did. When you were with Maisy, you just had to deal with the fact that you’d be going through the same motions a lot.

Tessa nodded along as they went from place to place, not really paying much attention. Her mind was too busy drifting to the fact that it was wrong that she was here. Why was she back in the inner world? Her and Mary had a deal, they’d been co-fronting for a while now. There was no reason for Mary to push her back from the front for such a long time. Sure, she’d take away the memories of them pulling the trigger and beating criminals senseless, just to keep Tessa from falling apart and keep Mary satiated, but such a long time with nothing felt so wrong.

That feeling of wrongness only intensified when Maisy dragged her past the forest. It was the one place Maisy had begged her not to go into. At first, Tessa had thought it was because Mary lived there, but that didn’t make any sense. What she soon found out was that the forest were where the fragmented alters lived.

They weren’t really fully formed personalities, more like fractured pieces of a whole, each carrying memories, emotions, things that needed to be repressed far back. Memories Tessa didn’t need to know, that Mary didn’t want and Maisy couldn’t handle.

It was terrifying, knowing that they were lurking there, ready to come out if something was triggered. Knowing there were things in the back of her mind that she decided not to remember, when there was so much she did know and could handle.

Just like Mary apparently thought she couldn’t know what was happening now.

What could be worse? It was better not to know. Tessa didn’t need to know. Otherwise her mind might crack apart until everything she built up had shattered.

Maisy was just one piece of the puzzle trying to hold her sanity together, though she was on the brink of it herself. Every part of Tessa was just grasping at the seams trying to hold herself together, and clearly something was wrong right now.

The echoes in the forest called to her, wanting her to join them. Tempting her to relieve them of the memories. The winds picked up, blowing Tessa’s hair back. Something was wrong. Very wrong. What was going on outside?

Tessa shivered, and felt Maisy grab onto her hand tighter. “It’s okay Tessa, we’re almost there!”

“I think we should go inside, Maisy,” Tessa said carefully, looking up into the sky. The bright and happy day that once was, was now covered in clouds.

Maisy looked up at the sky. “Oh...”

The dragging resumed, this time 90 degrees to the left. Down, all the way until they reached Maisy’s house. Just outside of it was a cuckoo clock that Maisy waved to before opening the door. She pulled Tessa inside after her, just as the rain began. A torrential downpour flooded the village, spilling inside the house as Maisy forced the door shut against the wind. She took a few steps back, touching a hand to the wall where a line of clocks were placed. The ticking began to drown out the rainfall outside.

“The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout… Down came the rain and washed the spider out,” Maisy sung under her breath. “Out came the sun and dried up all the rain. And the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again.”

Another shiver went down Tessa’s spine.

Maisy seemed completely unphased by the rain, tilting her head back and forth. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Tessa.” A large boom of thunder came down. “It’s just the weather. It can’t hurt you.”

“But she can hurt others...”

“That’s what she does,” Maisy singsonged.

“But she isn’t supposed to anymore. We have a deal.”

The rain meant bad things outside. The turmoil leaking into the inner world with no way to stop it. Usually it meant death, or great harm. It meant Mary was at her most powerful.

“The flowers need rain to grow Tessa. We need to hurt others to survive.” Maisy said it in an almost sing-songy voice, still holding that same tone of childhood innocence despite her words. “It’s just whooo we are.”

“It’s not who I am! I don’t want this!”

“Do you not want to be in here with me, Tessa? We never get to hang out anymore… I was worried you didn’t like me. What happened to the times you spent here when you were small?”

Those times when Tessa would retreat to the inner world were fun, but they were always twinged with fear. Fear that her parents would find her. Fear the next punishment would be worse. Fear that the next bruise would be unable to be hidden.

“I… I do like you, Maisy. I just don’t like being in here. It doesn’t mean good things.” Tessa clasped her hands together. “This is your safe space, not mine. Not anymore. I don’t… need something like this.”

“Of course you do! The outside world is scary, Tessa. Isn’t it better in here? There’s no pain. You can protect your noggin.” She pointed at her head. “Why don’t you just let Mary take over forever?

“What? Why would I do that? I’d never see my friends again!”

“But your friends abandon you. They don’t do that here. Look! Ducky got me this today!” Maisy pointed at a clock on the wall, indistinguishable from the others. “Would the real Ducky do that?”

Tessa huddled back in on herself. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw the doctor. In this world though, he was a literal humanoid duck. It wasn’t something she could recognize as her friend, like she could when she was a little girl. This whole place… it was a childhood fantasy. One that comforted her before, but was more like a prison now. Those little villagers weren’t her real friends. She had ones on the outside now.

“You know the damage she can do out there Maisy,” Tessa reminded her. “I can’t let her destroy everything.”

“But you wouldn’t have to deal with it! You could just stay in here with me forever. You could learn to love the rain. Isn’t it kind of pretty when you think about it?”

Tessa’s head turned towards in window slowly, watching as the rain drizzled. It left patterns on the window, the little drops becoming rivers. In a way, it was pretty. But no. This was her life, not Mary’s. She couldn’t give it up, no matter how much Maisy wanted her to stay. She had a life she needed to get back to- if Mary hadn’t destroyed it. The rain was already lightening up, it was time for her to take back her place. She wouldn’t remember this, but she knew she had to keep strong. This was her life. Mary wasn’t allowed to ruin it on her watch. She wasn’t. They had a deal. Tessa closed her eyes, prepared to take back the driver’s seat.

The ticking of the clocks grew louder. “Oh look! It’s time! Bye Tessaaaaa!”

Tessa turned around just in time to see Maisy disappearing. One second she was there, the next she wasn’t. She had the wheel now, not Tessa.

She immediately pushed open the door, fiddling with the handle for a few seconds before it actually opened. Her head wiped around, shaking the few drops of rain still coming down off.

“Mary?” Tessa called. It was a long shot, but if Mary wasn’t in control anymore, then she had to be somewhere. Maisy didn’t let people be co-conscious with her. It was her way or the highway.

There was nothing but the wind. Tessa slowly stepped more outside, her heart pounding. It felt like she was trapped. There was no way out of this place, nothing to do but wait, and try and think about what Mary could have done, and why she let Maisy have control now. Tessa couldn’t remember anything before going to sleep the night before, but she had to have been awake for some time. Mary never woke up fully in control, it just didn’t happen.

Tessa walked slowly through the town, the little details springing out to her. Maisy clearly took care of this place so much, for how little she was. She didn’t seem to mind that it wasn’t real. The flowers bloomed in three days, the paths were laid down in seconds, the villagers spoke in repetitive sentences, but it didn’t matter to her. The patterns were comfortable to her, in fact. Routines were always laid out, nothing was difficult.

Tessa wished it could be for her. She wished her life could be this easy, that she could be happy with the little things like Maisy was. It felt like everything was still piling up for her, and there wasn’t much she could do. Perhaps that was part of the reason why her mind shattered more and created Maisy. A part of it wanted to be a little kid again, one without fears of the outside. A childhood she never experienced.

Tears sprung to Tessa’s eyes. Before she realized it, she had come to the forest on the outskirts on autopilot. She took a few steps back, but then one forward. The forest was beckoning towards her.

She caught a glimpse of a fragment just on the outskirts, huddled behind a tree. Her head was poked out behind it, showing herself as a ghost image of Tessa. Her eyes were like dark voids, calling to her. Memories she had forgotten crept around the edges of her mind.

Why was she like this?

No one else was so messed up their mind literally creative different aspects of itself to keep things contained. No one else was so bad they created little fragments of themselves to keep memories, torturing them with the thoughts. No one else created an entire world to feel safe.

More tears dripped down.

What if she stepped into the forest?

Would she ever come out? Could she ever make herself whole?

She took another step forward. The ghost Tessa beckoned her in.

There was the growling of a wolf.

All of a sudden it was attacking the ghost, causing her to retreat further back into the forest before any further damage could be done. The wolf turned back to Tessa, blood dripping down from her mouth from where she bit the fragment.

“I still need you, Lamb,” she growled out.

Mary had no concept of herself as a human. Just a wolf. Sleek black fur, eyes that burn into your soul. It was terrifying, which was probably the point. Tessa took a step forward, reaching her hand out. Mary brushed against the hand slightly, pulling back after a second. It was the closest she’d ever allow her, just because Mary knew Tessa craved physical touch. It made her more malleable.

“Thank you, Mary…”

“Don’t interact with them. Don’t even look at them. There’s a reason they’re in a dark and scary forest. Nothing good comes from there.”

Tessa nodded, taking more steps back.

“Why is Maisy in control, Mary?” She asked.

“She needs to stretch her legs or she might try and take over at an inopportune time and blow our cover. She’s in your house right now. Probably adding more clocks.”

Great. More clocks. At least their presence was very peripheral on her mind, so she barely even noticed them when she was in front. The ticking noise was probably driving her even more mad though.

“What happened, Mary? Did you…?” Tessa trailed off.

“Yes. We were on shift. Had to shoot a criminal. He’s dead.”

Tessa stepped back a little, feeling relieved but also bad that she felt relived. Someone had died by her hand. Although, that wasn’t new. She had killed her parents too. She was already seeped in blood. But this… this was on the job. This was legal.

“We agreed to this, Lamb.”

“I know, I just thought...” She thought Mary had snapped and went off to kill illegally again.

“I wouldn’t go back on a deal. In fact, I’d like to do this more, Tessa. If only your mind wasn’t so fragile after.” Mary looked around in what had to be disgust, but which didn’t translate well on a wolf’s face. “This place is disgusting. I thought we grew out of childish things like this, but of course you’d create a part of yourself that just wants an imitation. Pathetic.”

Mary spoke her thoughts candidly, telling Tessa like it was. Harsh, inflammatory, but true. Tessa knew she was pathetic. She was a murderer, a killer, a weak, tired girl, who couldn’t even control her own thoughts. Couldn’t stop herself from wanting to walk into a forest of trauma.

“Let’s go, Lamb. Let Maisy rest. She’s had enough time.”

\---------------

Tessa woke up in her bed to the sound of ticking. A part of her mind registered that there were more clocks in the room than before, but that part was quickly shut down as the clocks faded from view. Tessa was emotionally stable. She wasn’t the kind of person to decorate her house with clocks like a lunatic.

She wasn’t the kind of person to retreat into inner worlds were nothing bad could happen because things were crumbling apart around the edges. She was just Tessa Lamb. Cop and Driving Instructor. Nice Person.

Tears dripped down onto her pillow case, like drops of rain.

**Author's Note:**

> Note that this fic is not really accurate to actual Dissociative Identity Disorder despite this application of some concepts here, because people with DID are not murderers like Tessa is. This is a Hollywood portrayal of the disorder, and should absolutely not be taken as reality. In fact, people with DID are much more likely to be victims of violence themselves. Just keep this in mind, and recognize this is fiction, not reality.
> 
> \---
> 
> More GTA RP! More Fics are coming soon in different fandoms! I honestly just needed an break from writing fanfic. I know I said this last time... five months ago... but this time I mean it!  
> I still love all the comments I get on my other fics, and I really really want to write a sequel to HPBDTTS, but uhhhhh, with Janus being a good guy now and me casting him as the 'bad guy' in my fic, I'm not quite sure what to do. It'd feel weird still making him the antagonist... Oh well, I'll figure it out. Also! Expletive is almost to 1k Kudos!! That's absolutely amazing!!


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